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In their final session of 2017, the Madison County Board of Commissioners closed the book on the 2016-17 fiscal year and charted a course for 2018 under a new chairman.

Former chair Norris Gentry opened the Dec. 12 session inside A-B Tech’s lecture hall with a short statement delivering on his promise to step down from his role leading the board after his 12-month run. “I believe the chairmanship should rotate on a regular basis,” he said. “Today I am honoring that commitment.”

Following his prepared remarks, Gentry nominated fellow Democratic Commissioner Wayne Brigman for the chairmanship. Clayton Rice, a Democrat, and Matthew Wechtel, a Republican, joined Gentry and Brigman in supporting Brigman’s nomination. Republican Bill Briggs, who nominated Wechtel, dissented. The vote returned Brigman to the position he held until passing it to Gentry in December 2016. The chairman's responsibilities include setting meeting agendas and signing certain county documents.

After the procedural move, county finance officer Rhea Hollars and Travis Keever of accounting firm Gould Killian shared details from the audit of the 2016-17 fiscal year. Hollars highlighted an increased property tax collection rate, up nearly one-half a percent from the previous year to 95.88-percent. “Thanks in part to Donny (Laws, county attorney) and Lori (Ray, tax collector) and their efforts to push for those tax collections.”

For the second year in a row, independent auditors cited the Department of Social Services with an adverse finding related to Medicaid case management. With $40.5 million in state and federal funds passing to the county to determine eligibility, Medicaid is the largest federal program with county oversight according to Keever.

The finding relates to record keeping procedures cited in last year’s audit. Department of Social Service staff have since adopted an “enhanced corrective action plan” after auditors raised the concerns, Keever said. Given that the 2015-16 audit findings came in the middle of the 16-17 fiscal year, according to Keever, a repeat of the same concern was not unexpected.

“The hope would be that with more than a full year to implement corrective actions, we will see improvements in testing in next year’s audit,” Keever said. He also made clear that the record keeping concerns did not lead to the county paying out benefits to individuals who did not qualify. “The county did not pay benefits to folks who were not eligible,” he said to commissioners.

County Manager Forrest Gilliam referred to the audit as “the final report card on how we’re doing on details and also showing how our budget is fully implemented.” He said that with audit showing the county’s revenues exceeding expenditures by 1.5 million, that “good progress is being made.”